Abigail Herrin

I've been working in the hospitality field for 6 years, and it's been an incredible journey of growth. I started my career at UCF Rosen, the School of Hospitality at the University of Central Florida, where I majored in hospitality. I began at the ground level as a banquet server and worked my way up through various positions - receptionist for a catering company, sales coordinator, event manager, and sales and events manager - before reaching my current role as group sales manager for a hotel. My main area of expertise is group sales, particularly convention sales and event sales. On a typical day, I'm responding to inquiries, creating proposals, meeting with clients, giving them site tours of the property, and maintaining meaningful relationships with partners. What I'm most proud of professionally is receiving management roles at a very young age and being able to continue to grow within them, creating a deeper-rooted understanding of the roles I'm in and where I'm headed. What really inspired me to get into this field was hearing about the hospitality program through UCF and learning about what they do and how inspiring hospitality is - it's basically just a professional way of making someone else's day better.